Complete Withdrawal of Support by Richard Gage, AIA, for CIT’s “National Security Alert”

In early 2009, I watched the “National Security Alert” video by the Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) where recollections of 10 eyewitness accounts of the attack on the Pentagon were presented (of many more that were interviewed). These accounts included the witnesses’ recollection of the path being taken by the plane prior to impact. The path that many of them recalled was to the north of the former CITGO gas station. Based on these few accounts CIT presented its case that the plane flew over the Pentagon since the damage trail was not consistent with the north path.

My main focus relative to 9/11 had been on the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers. I had not been able to spend much time on the Pentagon issue. I was initially impressed by CIT’s presentation and, more than a year and a half ago, provided a short statement of support for their efforts.

After making my statement I became aware of more details of the CIT witness accounts as well as the rest of the compelling eyewitness testimony that is available. The vast majority of eyewitness accounts refute the CIT flyover conclusion, as they entail that the plane hit the Pentagon or was flying so low it could not miss.
I was also surprised to learn that 12 of the witnesses that CIT interviewed (including six witnesses to whom CIT refers to as north path witnesses) were in a position to see the Pentagon and all 12 stated that they saw the plane hit the Pentagon. It was clear from this that CIT used improper investigative methods. CIT used and presented only those portions of their witness reports which fit their conclusion. The preponderance of CIT’s own evidence in fact supports the conclusion that the plane impacted the Pentagon. (See Summary and Analysis of “National Security Alert” and other works listed below for these and many additional witness statements that describe the plane as clearly impacting the Pentagon).

Because of these concerns I provided new statements in December 2009 and January 2010 pointing out that my previous statement of support should not be interpreted as an endorsement of their conclusion that the airplane flew over the Pentagon. Despite these statements, CIT has continued to publish my original statement and characterize it as an endorsement of their flyover conclusion. I am hereby now on the record clearly as NOT supporting the CIT investigation at all. In addition, I insist that CIT delete my name from its web site in any and every context in which it might give the impression of support or endorsement of their efforts from me.

I base my present position also on a number of blogs, papers, blogs, and videos that have shed light on the Pentagon Flight 77 issues and on CIT’s work. These papers should be among those studied by anyone seeking the full truth about these matters. Most of these works analyze additional evidence and come to different conclusions than CIT does.

There was a time in the four years after 9/11 when I simply assumed that the official story of the destruction of the WTC Twin Towers on 9/11 was true. One could say that I “endorsed” the official story based on what I knew at the time, but as I learned more, my opinion of what happened to those buildings evolved radically. John Maynard Keynes, father of Keynesian Economics, once said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” A similar evolution has occurred in relation to my view of CIT’s work.

I strongly recommend that people who care to research what happened at the Pentagon take personal responsibility for forming their own conclusions by acquainting themselves with a wide range of analysis done by people who have come before them rather than jumping to conclusions based on a skewed selection of evidence and argument, or being unduly influenced by any type of authority figure. Use your own discernment, based on your use of the scientific method to arrive at a coherent theory that you can confidently stand behind.

One of the authors cited above, Frank Legge, PhD., admonishes us to adopt a “prudent approach” to the Pentagon piece of the 9/11 puzzle. In the end he wisely advocates the “precautionary principle” which is to “assert only what we can truly know,” given the contradictory evidence, misinformation, disinformation, and lack of information from official sources, and the difficulty in verifying much of it, years after the fact and with inadequate resources.

Legge concludes that there is prima facie evidence that “the official explanation of the event at the Pentagon is false and that a cover-up exists. He concludes as well this negative hypothesis: that there is “no proof that a 757 did not hit the Pentagon.” And, since officials are holding the cards (videos) as to what did or didn’t hit the Pentagon, Dr. Legge’s recommendation is that investigators “take care to avoid publicly asserting that the 757 did not hit the Pentagon”.
We can all agree that no hijacked plane should have been able to violate the airspace of our nation’s capital and hit the headquarters of the most sophisticated defense system in the world – an hour and a half after the assault began on the Twin Towers.

The 9/11 Truth movement will be more likely to succeed in its effort to educate the public about the Pentagon by focusing on those areas of greatest agreement.

Sincerely,
Richard Gage, AIA

–end of Richard Gage’s e-mail

Editors Note: Thank you to Richard Gage for taking the time to properly look into CIT and withdraw your endorsement of misinformation. Your information and presentations are much too powerful to be associated with sloppy, agenda driven misinformation like that found in the film “National Security Alert”.

“The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 – 1900)

This article is a response to “Is Leading 9/11 Truth Site Working For The Other Side?”, credited to “staff writers” at the Rock Creek Free Press, November 2010 edition, available at: http://www.rockcreekfreepress.com/CreekV4No11-Web.pdf

The “leading 9/11 Truth site” being referred to is 911Blogger.com. The authors of the article critiqued here chose to remain anonymous, and the article’s title doesn’t lend itself to an easily pronounceable acronym. Therefore I will refer to the article’s authors, along with their vocal message board sympathizers and Barrie Zwicker, as The Complainers. We will abbreviate Citizen Investigation Team as “CIT” and their video National Security Alert as “NSA” (noting the irony).

I normally prefer the high ground when it comes to accusations regarding intentions. However, since the Complainers routinely impute sinister motives to their critics, the reader must consider whether that behavior is more consistent with an intention to support or subvert the overall agenda of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Contents

The Complainers’ article, like NSA itself, is fraught with logical fallacies and intellectual dishonesty. Examples are discussed in the following sections:

Most of the article consists of a running ad hominem attack, accusing people who run one of the admittedly “leading” 9/11 Truth websites of wanting to cover up mass murder. The Complainers correctly state “it would be surprising if the perpetrators of 9/11 had not attempted to infiltrate and subvert the 9/11 truth movement”, but knowing this alone does not help to identify the infiltrators. Sorting out the cast of characters requires close examination of the devilish details in order to distinguish among knavish infiltrators, simple fools, and sincere truth-seekers who have been fitted into a well-designed “snitch jacket” in the spirit of COINTELPRO. The implicit assumption of the Complainers is that criticizing the investigative quality of CIT’s work is the same as working to cover up 9/11 – a manipulative appeal to emotion. The accusation of disloyalty echoes the McCarthyists and their modern-day brethren. It comes from the same playbook used by those who defend the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, for which 9/11 served as the pretext, by calling 9/11 activists “terrorist sympathizers.”

The Complainers drew warnings from 911Blogger moderators, for their vicious and divisive attacks on other researchers, the real cause of the banning of which the Complainers … complain. A moderator told them that this was one of the reasons that they were banned. Yet this explanation brought no humility or lessened outrage to the Complainers. Is their reaction simply an inability to see their own misbehavior as others see it, or something more? Does it perhaps come from the idea that the best defense is a good offense? (Readers with a well-developed sense of consistency will understand my indulgence in some questions regarding the Complainers’ intentions, given that they “went there” first.)

Whatever the reason, many comments supportive or critical of CIT/NSA that violated 911Blogger rules were allowed to stand because of the overwork that is endemic to the 9/11 truth movement. Whatever inconsistencies there might have been, in terms of who was allowed to get away with what, say little or nothing about the moderators’ intentions.

A Key Exaggeration

The Complainers write as though the evidence against a large airliner having flown into the Pentagon were strongly in their favor, and they make vastly exaggerated claims for the power and the clarity of that evidence. Jim Hoffman’s essay, The Pentagon No-757-Crash Theory: Booby Trap for 9/11 Skeptics, published in October 2004, finds that much of the evidence regarding what hit the Pentagon is inconclusive, and is incapable of being made much better than it is. Since the 9/11 Truth movement is working to uncover the truth about 9/11, against a backdrop of blatant lies that constitute an orchestrated coverup, it is important to deal very cautiously with facts. Deviating from the official story carries a heavy burden of proof, especially in the mind of the public. Speculation lays us open to debunking. Speculation that appears outrageous, and is proved wrong, can paint the whole 9/11 Truth Movement with a broad brush as crazies. We could lose all the hard fought ground we have gained, rendering our solid accomplishments moot. On these grounds, the question of what hit the Pentagon is a self-defeating choice as the focus of any demand for a new investigation. In one of his later analyses Hoffman concludes that “[the] evidence comports with the crash of a Boeing 757.” He added that while “the evidence does not conclusively prove that the aircraft was a 757, much less that it was Flight 77”, “that lack of conclusiveness should not be surprising given the systematic suppression of evidence by authorities.” We need to be willing to let the official story stand unless the proof to the contrary is extremely solid.

Here are three essays and a shorter but very recent piece describing what the Pentagon evidence actually shows. They also contain explanations of the severe disadvantages of focusing publicly on the question of what hit the Pentagon, and the benefits of focusing on the evidence that many other key aspects of the official account of what happened at the Pentagon are demonstrably false:

David who describes himself as a “pacifist” talks in great depth about his journey on the campaign for 9/11 Truth and Justice which he is passionately dedicated. Many of you may be aware it was David who is credited with getting NIST to admit WTC Building 7 fell at a an acceleration consistent with free-fall due to gravity; which I and many others view as the single most powerful debating tool for us as 9/11 Truth advocates! David disputes he is solely responsible for this and says that Jones, Ryan and others were central to this achievement but it was his question that drew the answer in the end so it seems. David also talks about the highly political timing and nature of the NIST Building 7 report.

We then move on to talk about David’s his new DVD “9/11 Analysis” which is comprised of a compilation of his powerful work to date and some new material into one concise resource. This DVD is available for sale now and can be purchased here.

From the site:

“The 9/11 Analysis DVD project is a compilation of the many short analysis videos David Chandler has produced and uploaded to the internet over the last few years, woven together with an interpretive narrative. The current release is in English, but the plan is to follow this with a multilingual release. We need to raise funds to cover the production costs to make Phase II a reality. Please order your copy now and/or help out with a donation.”

In the second part of this frank and informative interview David talks about his strong stance on the Pentagon fiasco that is now threatening the whole credible body of 9-11 research. The aggressive nature of the advocates of “no plane hit the Pentagon” has lead to a situation that is already out of control as has been seen by Ventura’s terrible error of judgement with his episode of “Conspiracy Theory” for True TV on this subject. The case made by David for us not to be seen as a “Pentagon Movement” for it could mean our destruction is the best I’ve heard to date!

For David’s analysis of the Pentagon Debate please see his and Jon Cole’s web page dedicated to the issue:
http://911speakout.org/?page_id=219

Here is an exert: “The Honey Pot – On the other hand the mystery that surrounds the Pentagon makes it an attractive target of speculation and the subject of truly wild conspiracy theories. (This kind of attractive diversion is sometimes called a “honey pot,” a “setup” to be discredited at a later time.) This is not the only instance of theories that seem designed to be easily discredited. There are groups that insist the towers at the World Trade Center were taken down by space lasers. Others claim no planes hit the Twin Towers at
all: they were just holograms. What better way to tar the movement than to seed it with absurdly false theories that fuel a media circus, while making the Movement look ridiculous?”

NOTE: You may have seen or heard on the net that CIT has said that I John Bursill made a commitment to them to leave this issue alone in a discussion had with Craig Ranke, this is true. I changed my mind many months back after the work Dr Frank Legge was doing around the Digital Flight Data Recorder data re-analysis of which I was involved. This and the aggressive moves by CIT and Pilots for 9/11 Truth to convince the 9/11 Truth Movement that the “fly over” was a proven fact has forced me back to this issue. I apologise for my back flip but I feel it is that important that I speak out and support those that do the same for the survival of the 9/11 Truth Movements credibility.

“Earlier this year I wrote a review of CIT’s “National Security Alert” in which I recommended that we all take a closer look at the eyewitness accounts supporting the “North path” of American Airlines Flight 77 at the Pentagon. CIT’s investigation includes detailed in-person interviews which appeared quite compelling. As AE911Truth’s focus is the destruction of three buildings at WTC, I didn’t perform an exhaustive review of CIT’s material and methods. My quick statement should not be portrayed as an endorsement of CIT’s conclusion that the airliner ‘flew over’ the Pentagon.”

This interview focuses on Dr. Legge’s new essay is titled What Hit the Pentagon? and is published in it’s latest version (v.5) at the Journal of 9-11 Studies. This essay’s leading hypothesis states that:

The major hypothesis is that various groups within the 9/11 truth movement are strongly asserting contradictory views and hence weakening the credibility of the movement as a whole. The damage is exacerbated if the supporters of these views not only disagree but also attack one another.

Dr. Legge also includes a minor hypothesis which says:

The minor hypothesis of the paper is that there is no scientific proof that a Boeing 757 did not hit the Pentagon.

Both hypotheses are examined as well as the idea that the “no plane at the Pentagon” theory is a booby trap for the entire movement. This idea states that if members of the 9-11 movement continue to promote this “no plane” theory as fact, that as our efforts become increasingly mainstream, we run the risk of the government producing a video of AA 77 actually hitting the Pentagon. We know the government has many videos which they have deliberately withheld from the public. What little information we have been given through official channels has only fueled the “no plane” argument. If a video were released tomorrow, it is suggested that this would thrust the entire movement into disarray as well as be used in the media to discredit us and irrevocably damage our credibility.

Also of importance in Dr. Legge’s essay is the section on The Precautionary Principle. We at Visibility 9-11 endorse this approach and caution listeners and visitors to do your homework and only present to the public that information which is solidly documented or backed up by scientific research.

Lastly, is a brief mention of the fine work of John Bursill in hosting 4 events in Australia and New Zealand during the month of November. The Hard Evidence Tour Down Under 2009 will feature my guest Dr. Legge as well as other solid and reputable members of the movement, and providing to the public only the best evidence we have. Thanks to John Bursill for pulling together such a fine line-up and for setting a great example for everyone to follow when it comes to bringing to the public only that information which can be solidly proven. If you want to help with the costs associated with these conferences, which are largely being funded by John himself, please send an email to johnbursill@gmail.com.

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